Incorporating Exemplary Practices into an Interdisciplinary Environmental Science Course for Non-Science Majors

Trinity College, Hartford CT

Investigators

Abstract

Interdisciplinary (99) This project is developing a new, two-semester course intended to serve as a foundation for a new environmental literacy minor and a new interdisciplinary environmental studies major at Trinity College. This course, The Science of Environmental Change in the 21st Century, is being designed to become a science laboratory course for many of our pre-service teachers. The goal of this course is to provide non-science majors with the basic interdisciplinary science background needed to understand both global, regional, and local environmental problems. To accomplish this we are adapting and using components of problem-based learning (PBL), discovery-based learning (DBL), and undergraduate research that have been successfully employed at other institutions. We are incorporating cooperative, student-based learning (one component of PBL) by emulating the approach used at the University of Delaware, where Dr. Harold White uses cooperative learning in chemistry and Dr. Deborah Allen uses peer-tutoring in biology. Another component of PBL is using relevant issues to introduce non-science majors to the scientific method and content. To accomplish this, we are adapting the model used in the American Chemical Society textbook, Chemistry in Context, by using current environmental issues as vehicles for students to learn important concepts in biology, chemistry, and physics. In addition, we are adapting examples of issues in environmental justice used Dr. Janan Hayes of Merced College, Dr. Patricia Perez of Mount San Antonio College, and Dr. Barbara Tewksbury of Hamilton College who report that these are of particular interest to women and minority students. We also are adapting and implementing DBL as practiced by Drs. Richard Moog and James Spencer at Franklin and Marshall College where students learn chemistry through guided research or experimentation instead of through transmittal by textbooks or class lectures. We are creating a series of discovery-based lesson plans that include guided discovery worksheets that help students formulate their own questions, identify information they need to answer those questions, and make conclusions based on evidence they obtain. Finally, we are incorporating undergraduate research in our course following a model used at the College of New Jersey. Faculty there have developed a Faculty Student Research Course that focuses on involving undergraduate students in research with well-developed, rigorous curricular objectives. Using this model, we plan to engage students in two types of research projects in our course: carefully controlled mini-projects conducted in the laboratory, and more complex, community-based research activities in the field.